Defenders Magazine

Alaska's Wolves

At the Center of the Storm.

By Nick Jans

© Corel Corporation

The wolves must have seen me first. In the slanted sunlight of the Arctic evening, they couldn't miss my orange tent and my snowmobile in the valley below them. I saw the pack, a dozen wolves in all, working along the ridge above my camp. They paused to stare down toward me, as I in turn stared back through my spotting scope. Then the wolves crossed the snowfield, went down into a draw and out of sight. A few minutes later, a chorus of howls drifted down on the wind.

I went back to camp chores, feeling lucky. Even in this remote stretch of Alaska's Brooks Range, wolves are a rare sight. In a quarter-century of living in and traveling the far reaches of Alaska's bush, I've lost count of the bears, caribou and moose I've seen, but wolves are another story. Each encounter is fused into my memory. And each time, at the instant of recognition, an electric thrill runs through me—wolf! Suddenly the land comes alive, and I remember why I came to Alaska: to live in a place that still offers the chance of such encounters with the wild.

Though wolves are the embodiment of Alaskan wilderness, they occupy an unlikely place in the pantheon of wildlife: at the center of a major controversy that has roiled passions and politics both inside and outside the state for decades. State officials have sanctioned the aerial gunning of hundreds of these wolves each year—a practice that some insist is necessary, and others insist is at best ill-conceived. The dispute over this practice can sometimes obscure the simplest and most profound aspects of these remarkable creatures.

Wolves roam nearly the entire vastness of Alaska—more than a half-million square miles, from temperate rain forest to tundra. Scattered in varying densities across the state are, according to state biologists' estimates, somewhere between 7,000 and 11,000 wolves. To put that number in perspective, consider that Alaska's caribou population exceeds a million, grizzly bears number roughly 40,000 and the state's black bear count may be as high as 100,000. Even when abundant, wolves, as top predators, are spread thinly over the land.

Members of the same species (Canis lupus) that once ranged across North America, Europe and Asia, Alaska's wolves are highly successful expressions of an ancient canine strain, essentially unchanged in tens of thousands of years. While mammoths and the saber-toothed cat faded into extinction along with dozens of other species, Canis lupus continued to prosper, in no small part due to formidable physical attributes—keen senses, endurance, strength and speed.

But the real key to their success in Alaska and elsewhere has been their adaptability and versatility. They can operate in coordinated groups to take on powerful hoofed mammals; or hunt alone, focusing on lemmings with catlike skill; or scrounge insects, berries and carrion. They're equally efficient on high mountain ridges, in dense forests, scrublands or open plains, and operate by day or night. In Alaska, their diet consists of moose, salmon, Dall sheep, ducks, musk oxen, mountain goats, hares, ptarmigan, beaver, black bears, deer, small rodents, caribou, eggs, even porcupines—each prey requiring specialized hunting techniques. And if there's nothing to be had, they can survive without eating for days, even weeks, at a time. In short, the wolf finds a way.

Inextricably linked to that adaptability is a highly developed intelligence. In fact, they're a lot like us. Perhaps that's what fascinates us most about wolves: We look into those bright, cold eyes and see a fellow hunter and wanderer, a social creature bonded by family that's managed to find a home almost anywhere and, through a combination of intellect and adaptation, has become master of its world.

I awoke in the morning to a chorus of howls—much closer now, the aspirated urrhh audible at the end of each wavering call. Stumbling from the tent, I scanned the ridge. There, a head on the skyline, ears cocked forward, 500 yards above me in the rocks. I was being watched and, no doubt, discussed. Slowly, one at a time, the pack sifted into sight and made its way down the hill. Nothing in my experience told me I was in danger. But how many people could sit calmly, alone, as a dozen wolves inched their way toward camp? My old Eskimo friend Clarence, the master wolf hunter, had admonished me to be careful around large packs. "Wolf can get me anytime, real easy," he said. "If they want to, well, nothing I can do." When I voiced my skepticism, Clarence barked, "Quiet! Wolves are listening right now!"

As it turned out, the wolves never came within a hundred yards and, after a cursory investigation, completely ignored me. As I watched over the next three days, they drifted in and out of sight on the creased tundra flat that stretched across the valley floor. They howled, napped, played with sticks, scent-marked and groomed; they came and went singly and in pairs, passing around my camp as if it were a strange outcropping, part of the landscape. Neither threat nor prey, I was of no consequence.

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's own research, there's been not one single proven case of a wild, healthy wolf killing a human in the United States. Captive or pet wolves, and wild wolves that have been fed by humans, have attacked people and caused some deaths outside of Alaska, and so have rabid wolves and wolf/dog hybrids. However, in the history of the state, only 16 documented cases of people being bitten by wolves exist, and not one injury was life-threatening. Statistically, moose are far more dangerous.

But whether wolves pose a real danger to humans or not, the mistrust and fear are real enough. Two years ago, for example, residents of the bush village of Aniak testified to the Alaska Board of Game that the locally expanding wolf population posed a threat to public safety, and I've heard similar concerns echoed by trappers, legislators and housewives from around the state. In this matter, perception is just as powerful as fact.

A far more common conviction among residents is that wolves are a looming menace to the moose, caribou and other wildlife so many Alaskans see as their birthright. The attitude is embodied by a bearded Kotzebue man who leaned toward me when I asked him to sign a petition to limit the state's aerial wolf-hunt and intoned, "They're predators. If we don't keep ‘em down, they'll eat everything."

Especially vocal in their concern are the ever-growing number of sport hunters and big-game guides who are part of a multimillion-dollar industry competing for a finite resource. To the most ardent of these, any game animal killed by wolves amounts to wanton waste—if not downright theft. This viewpoint is backed by a state legislative mandate for "intensive management" enacted in 1994, which demands that the state manage wildlife populations to "provide for high levels of harvest for human use"—in other words, find ways to produce as many moose, caribou and deer for people as possible. Wolves, as the non-voting competition, are the odd critters out.

Predator control is hardly a new concept. In Alaska, an anything-goes approach to killing as many wolves as possible—including unlimited shooting from aircraft, spreading poison-laced baits, and killing young in their dens—was encouraged in pre-statehood days by a government-sponsored bounty program that essentially classified wolves as vermin. But public support for such programs has eroded sharply, and poisoning and bounties are both currently outlawed.

Airplane gunning of wolves in the state continues, however. Whether the wolves are shot directly from the plane or chased and then shot on the ground (so-called "land and shoot"), this remaining, state-sponsored wolf-control program is steeped in controversy. Opponents—which in the past have included a solid majority of the state's voters, including many rural residents—question the lack of scientific evidence for the program, what they regard as heavy-handed tampering with healthy ecosystems, and the ethics of gunning down animals from the air. Proponents—including Governor Frank Murkowski, a majority of the state legislature, and the state board of game (appointees of the governor)—fume about meddling by urban non-hunters and "preservationists."

This controversy has triggered two statewide ballot measures, both of which resulted in restrictions on the use of airplanes to kill wolves. But both ballot measures were overturned by the Alaska legislature (see sidebar). Currently, another signature drive is underway to put the question of aerial wolf control on the ballot for a third time. The wrangling seems destined to drag on for years, giving wolves the dubious distinction of being the state's most controversial wildlife species.

At this point, there's no imminent danger of Alaska's wolves becoming extinct. Roughly 1,400 have been killed each of the last 10 years by sport hunters and trappers, an apparently sustainable level; the aerial gunning program has accounted for fewer than 500 wolves over the past three seasons, well below the board of game's target. What is at stake—given the state's plans to eradicate 80 percent of wolves over millions of acres—is the wolves' role as top predators and masters of their destinies.

As human voices argue over their fate, Alaska's wolves drift through the spaces we leave vacant, indifferent to our will—neither the ravening threats nor the noble beings we've created to serve our doctrines and mythologies. In the end, they're something far more marvelous and unique. They're wolves.

A Brief History of Alaska Wolf Control

1915-1959: Wolves are an unprotected species. Federal predator-control program pays bounties and allows all means of killing wolves, including aerial gunning and poison.

1959-1968: Wolves granted some protection as big game and furbearers. Poisoning and bounties phased out. Aerial hunting continues.

1972: U.S. Congress passes Airborne Hunting Act to prohibit aerial hunting; Alaska’s Board of Game soon establishes regulation loopholes and aerial hunting begins again.

1993: Governor Walter Hickel stops aerial wolf-hunting program due to public outcry and tourism boycott threat. Alaska Board of Game circumvents this by allowing "land and shoot" statewide under trapping regulations. Record numbers of wolves killed.

1996: A citizen’s initiative calling for a ban of land-and-shoot wolf hunting and a ban (absent a biological emergency) on airborne wolf control by state personnel passes with 58 percent of the vote. The resulting law is overturned later by the Alaska legislature.

2000: A referendum seeking to end the use of private gunners in state aerial wolf-control programs passes with 53 percent of the vote but is overturned by the legislature in 2003.

2003-2005: Board of game adopts aerial control programs covering large areas of the state and targets the removal of more than 1,000 wolves. Alaska Department of Fish and Game issues permits to private aerial gunning teams and after two seasons, more than 440 wolves are killed.

2005-2006: Signature-gathering underway for a third ballot measure aiming to reinstate wolf-control restrictions adopted in 1996. Goal is to place the issue on a 2008 statewide ballot.

Alaska writer and photographer Nick Jans is a co-sponsor of the current ballot initiative to limit Alaska's aerial wolf-control program. His latest book is The Grizzly Maze (Dutton, 2005).